A “touch” does not have to be a one-on-one interaction. A 5-email autoresponder can have the same effect.

But many marketers don’t create enough touch points to build the trust needed to help prospects feel comfortable enough to make a purchase.

If you’re aggressively building an email list, but you don’t have an autoresponder or a regular publishing schedule in place, you’re letting prospects fall out of your funnel.

Blunder #2: Letting People Forget Who You Are

Have you ever received an email from a marketer and you have no idea who this person is?

Sometimes it’s spam. But just as often, it’s a marketer who let his or her list go dormant.

You probably signed up for the list months ago, there was no autoresponder in place, and the marketer hasn’t sent anything to subscribers since you signed up.

To stay top-of-mind with your audience, try to send or post something at least every week or so.

If you go too long, they’ll forget who you are and why they signed up in the first place.

Blunder #3: Focusing on Yourself Instead of Focusing on the Audience

Here’s a perfect example of what not to do in the middle of the funnel:

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This email doesn’t contain a single piece value for me.

I don’t care that they have a new website. I care about my life and my problems.

Instead of doing this, focus on helping people solve problems. If you can help people solve problems with your free content, they’ll be much more likely to purchase products and services from you when they have bigger problems they need to solve.

Blunder #4: No “Next Step”

People move through the middle of your sales funnel at their own pace.

You never know what piece of content will convince people to move into the “actively considering a purchase” stage.

But this I do know: too many marketers forget to include a call to action in their content.

You don’t have to be pushy. At the end of your cultivation materials, just include an invitation to take the next step.”

You could say: “If you’d like to learn more, we should talk. Here’s how to get in touch.”

Blunder #5: Not Testing Results

It’s easy to set up an autoresponder or a content plan, then just put your head down and execute.

Whatever you’re doing to cultivate prospects in the middle of the funnel, don’t forget to test different variations over time.

The math of sales funnels means a small improvement in one area can have a large impact on the overall results of your efforts.

Conclusion

Remember that people in the middle of the funnel are interested, but not quite sure about you yet.

If your middle-of-the-funnel efforts aren’t working well, people might hang out in this area of indecision for months—or even years.

Your job is to get them to move forward. Stay focused on that and you’ll do just fine.

Bottom Of The Sales Funnel Blunder

The prospect is interested. It’s time to close the deal.

This is the bottom-of-the-funnel, the place where you finally get paid.

It’s also the most costly place to make a mistake, since you’ve already invested so much effort in the top and middle parts of your funnel.

If your conversion numbers aren’t where you’d like them to be, here are a few blunders that might be causing your problems:

Blunder #1: A Super-Weak Headline

As David Ogilvy put it: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

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The headline is the single most important element of any sales message.

Whether you’re closing a deal in person or writing a sales page, the first words should hook audience, compelling them to pay close attention to the message.

When in doubt, keep your headlines clearly focused on the promise delivered by your product or service.

And if you do nothing else, you should always split test headlines to see what performs best with your audience.

Blunder #2: Selling the Drill Instead of the Hole

I had a business professor who loved to say, “People don’t buy drills. They buy the ability to put a hole in their wall.”

It’s the difference between the item or service you sell and the real, tangible value people receive when they become your customer.

Marketers are prone to “feature-preaching” at every stage of the sales funnel.

But it’s especially damaging in the bottom of the funnel.

Your sales materials should clearly describe your product or service. But you should describe features in the context of the benefit they’ll provide to a customer.

If you struggle with this, use the “so that” trick.

List a feature of your product, then say, “so that” and add the benefit.

It will look something like something like this

Video two describes how to identify quality partners so that you won’t get stuck working side-by-side with someone you hate.

Blunder #3: No Urgency or Scarcity

As the person writing the sales materials, it’s your job to tell your audience why they’ll benefit most if they buy today—instead of putting it off until tomorrow.

If people consistently tell you, “I’ll think about it,” your sales message probably didn’t do a good job with urgency.

Scarcity is similar. It’s the actual limitation on how many items or spots there are before you’re sold out.

Scarcity does not apply to every sales message. But if you have a natural limit to the number of people that can buy your product, you should absolutely use it in your sales messaging.

Blunder #4: No Risk Reversal

“What if I spend money on this and it turns out to be junk?”

It’s a question every customer asks.

It’s the marketer’s job to “reverse” this risk by offering a money-back guarantee (usually within 30 or 60 days).

If you don’t have a guarantee, people might be ready to buy, but they’re hesitant. They don’t want to make a mistake and waste their money.

A guarantee takes away that excuse.

Blunder #5: A Single Call to Action

A lot of marketers put one big call to action at the bottom 0f their sales page or at the end of their sales message.

This is a mistake.

When prospects land on a sales page—for example—some are ready to buy NOW.

Don’t make them scroll. Let them purchase immediately by adding a call to action toward the beginning of your sales message

Adding another call to action in the middle of your sales message to convert more prospects.

And of course, you should always end with a strong call to action at the end as well.

There’s one other benefit to having multiple calls to action: you can phrase the CTA differently each time. Try mixing “rational” CTAs with more emotional CTAs. For example:

Makes sense to me. Sign me up!

Get in Now Before Time Runs Out!

Mastering Sales Funnels for All Time

I hope this series helped you find and correct some of the most common problems in the top, middle, and bottom of your sales funnel.

Building a great sales funnel isn’t easy. It takes time, energy, and a lot of patience.

It is work that pays rich dividends—however—which is why we spend so much time studying it.

What about you? What other mistakes have you seen in your sales funnels? Let us know in the comments!

This was a great read! I’m actually smack in the middle of a landing page design project for a client and it’s great to know I’m on track! Meanwhile I picked up a handful of awesome tips! Thanks for posting!